Senior technical judgment, a few hours a month.
I help mission-driven ed-tech organizations, nonprofits, and early-stage companies make the technology decisions a full-time CTO would make, without carrying a full-time CTO.
20+ years in software · VP of Engineering at Paramount (Noggin) · Engineering Manager at IBM · platforms serving 1.3M+ children
What I do
The decisions that shape an organization's technology for years, made with someone who has made them before and has no product to sell you.
- Technical strategy
- A roadmap that matches your budget and your mission, and a plain-language account of the trade-offs behind it. What to build, what to buy, what to leave alone.
- Architecture and vendor decisions
- Which platform, which cloud, which AI tools are worth adopting and which are noise. Contract and cost review before you sign, and a second opinion on the proposals already on your desk.
- Hiring and team design
- Which roles you actually need, in what order, and how to interview for them when nobody on the hiring panel is an engineer. I sit in on the technical interviews if you want.
- Board-level technical reporting
- A quarterly read your board and funders can follow: risks, spend, progress, and what would change the picture. Written for people who run organizations, not for engineers.
- Technical due diligence
- For funders, boards, and acquirers: an independent assessment of a team, a codebase, and a platform, delivered in a form non-engineers can act on.
Who this is for
- Executive directors and program leads at ed-tech and open-educational-resources organizations whose technology has outgrown the vendor or volunteer who set it up.
- Founders who have a product and a small team but no senior technical leader yet, and are not ready to hire one full time.
- Boards and funders who need an independent technical opinion before a grant, an investment, or a large platform decision.
What this is not
This is not a development shop and it is not managed IT. I don't build websites, write your app, or run your helpdesk. If that is what you need, I will gladly point you to people who do it well.
How an engagement works
-
A conversation
Thirty minutes, no charge. You tell me what is on your plate; I tell you honestly whether I can help, and if not, who might.
-
A short written read
Two or three weeks looking at your systems, your team, and your plans. You get a written assessment you own, whether or not we continue.
-
Ongoing advisory
A monthly retainer of ten to twenty hours: a standing call, a direct line for decisions as they come up, and the quarterly board report. Fixed-scope work such as due diligence is quoted separately.
Where this comes from
Twenty years of building and running technology, most of it for platforms used by children and the people who teach them. I hold a CTO seat today; the advisory runs alongside it, within agreed limits.
- 2025 – 2026
- CTO, Noggin
Technology lead for a multimodal AI educational platform for young children. - 2021 – 2024
- VP of Engineering, Paramount (Noggin)
Re-platformed the native apps onto a cloud-native architecture; the service reached more than 1.3 million children in the US and won the 2024 Kidscreen Award for Best Learning App. - 2006 – 2021
- IBM, Lead Developer to Engineering Manager
Fifteen years, ending with the cloud migration of a field-services platform that cut its infrastructure cost by 57%. - Volunteer
- Volunteer CTO, OpenSciEd
Technical advisor to the open-source science curriculum nonprofit.
A note from Mauricio
Pragmatic Tech began as a consultancy, and I have brought it back to the work I am best at: helping people who run organizations make good technology decisions without having to become technologists themselves.
I keep the practice small on purpose. A handful of clients, ten to twenty hours a month each, so every one of them gets my actual attention rather than a slot in a calendar. If that sounds like what you need, write to me. I read everything myself and reply within two business days.
— Mauricio Andrade
Start with a conversation.
Tell me a little about your organization and what is on your mind. I will reply within two business days with a couple of times for a thirty-minute call.
Prefer email? contact@gopragmatic.tech